Freescale demos Bluetooth / UWB combo

Chip manufacturer Freescale claims it has demonstrated the industry's first Ultra-Wideband (UWB) silicon operating under existing Bluetooth software stacks. The combo chip will enable new applications that can take advantage of large data file transfers, including streaming of high-quality video.

Freescale said the demonstration, held at the WiCon event in Santa Clara, Calif., was intended to be a first look of a short-range wireless data transfer between notebooks. While first-generation Bluetooth tops out a 1 Mbit per second, Freescale's UWB demo used a bandwidth of up to 110 Mbit per second over a maximum distance of 20 meters (about 66 ft). "File transfer happens almost instantaneously," the company stated.

The company did not say when the chip, named XS110, would be commercially available.